Full Notebook: Lots of politicians are stupid. But Todd Akin is special

The Missouri senatorial candidate made the mistake of revealing his ignorance in the latter stages of a presidential race during which both candidates are trying to avoid issues. Mitt Romney doesn't want to discuss abortion; Barack Obama wants to talk about anything but the economy.

Politicians say plenty of stupid things all the time, either as candidates or elected officials, so why the extra attention being paid to the remarks of Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin? Akin made a fool of himself, and probably scuppered his career hopes, when he suggested women have magic powers that let them avoid getting pregnant via rape. The term he inadvertently coined, “legitimate rape” quickly became a tag with which to identify anything particularly dunderheaded. Normally the laughs would have lasted a day or two, then disappear. But not in Akin’s case. Why? Because it’s not just a senate race, but a cog in the bigger drama of the White House contest.

Akin’s mistake was to sound exactly as stupid and retrograde as Democrats claim is common among Republicans. They oppose abortion, which means they must hate women. President Obama can’t best Romney among male voters, especially those lacking higher education, but he’s popular among women, and the abortion issue lets him try to extend that lead. It also offers another opportunity to talk about something besides the economy, which is his weakest issue. And it lets him assure voters that dufuses like Akin are welcome in the GOP (Michele Bachmann, after all, still thinks gaydom can be cured).

Romney would love to kill the issue for all the same reasons, and because it tends to highlight the fact that he switched his own position on abortion when he decided to run for president. If you can abandon your beliefs on something so fundamental, Democrats argue, what won’t you abandon? Akin is refusing to quit the race, so the Republicans’ only hope is to find a looney Democrat to counter him with, perhaps an enviro-zealot who thinks trees should have human rights. But Obama probably has them all in witness protection by now.

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Britain’s Daily Mail manages to turn a couple of spots on a camera into a full-length (for a tabloid) discussion of the possibility of intelligent life on Mars. The headline reads: “Are these our Martian overlords … or just ‘dead pixels’ of a camera? Images beamed back from Curiosity lead to talk of UFOs on Mars.”

In classic Fleet Street fashion, it admits the specks are probably just specks, and quotes an “expert” saying as much, but doesn’t let that stop it from offering an extended photo spread and inviting readers to “judge for yourself.”

[np-related]

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Mark Mardell, North American editor of the BBC, wonders whether the “real” Mitt Romney will finally be unleashed at the Republican national convention next week.

There has long been an argument that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is hobbled because he will not be himself, will not tell his best stories. That might be about to change, he writes.

“The theory goes that we never see the real passion – let alone the warm, funny, generous individual his friends and family talk about. He seems inauthentic because he avoids talking about the commitment at the core of his life – his religious faith.”

Mardell suggests the snag to letting Romney be Romney is his Mormon faith. “Some consider what he believes off-putting: that in 19th Century rural New York state, an angel handed down a new revelation, written on tablets of gold. These taught that after his resurrection, Jesus Christ came to America and that the new promised land would be built in the US. Mormons are also taught that Native Americans are a lost tribe of Israel, one branch cursed with dark skin for their sin, and that all humans have the potential to become godlike.”

Yes, that could be a snag. However, he notes, the New York Times reports that everything could change at the convention as the candidate seeks to make up ground on Barack Obama. “Rather than shy away from Mr. Romney’s faith, as some campaign aides have argued he should, they have decided to embrace it. On the night Mr. Romney will address the convention, a member of the Mormon Church will deliver the invocation. On Sunday, this new approach was apparent as Mr. Romney invited reporters to join him at church services.”

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The whole problem with flying is that it isn’t uncomfortable enough. You handle your own bags, fetch your own boarding pass, get barked at by Customs, belittled and embarrassed by security, ordered around by anyone in a uniform, repeatedly forced to produce the same documents, herded around like cattle, delayed with no explanation, bumped against your will, criminally overcharged for food or drink and expected to pay ever-increasing amounts for the privilege of it all, including additional fees if you want to bring any luggage. Evidently that’s still too much fun, though, so, according to CNN, some airlines are reducing seat sizes so they can squeeze in more butts and produce more revenue. “JetBlue and Canada’s WestJet are cutting legroom for some nonpremium seats. At the same time, they’re increasing legroom for seats in higher-priced sections,” it reports. JetBlue will cut seats by an inch while adding two more rows. “Alberta-based WestJet says it’s making a similar change, cutting about an inch of legroom from its regular seats and adding four rows of seats with 36 inches across its entire fleet of 737s by the end of the year. The remaining rows will have “31 or 32 inches,” the airline says, depending on various factors.”

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